Recovering Baptist

This post is inspired by David’s recent post.

I recently saw a video by Donald Miller, the guy who wrote Blue Like Jazz. He’s a good writer and an even better speaker, and he was talking about the damage the Enlightenment has done to the world. So-called Enlightened people like to think that everything falls into logical categories and that there is little purpose for emotion or, for that matter, the arts. And yet, pure logic simply fails to describe some very basic and important aspects of life. Consider love, for example. I could try wooing my wife by saying something like “Honey, I love you. And see, here’s a list of reasons why. You have blond hair, you’re shorter than me but not too short, and you’re intelligent. Those are the things I wanted in a wife, so I love you.” Objective, logical things fail to describe or explain why two people love each other. And pure logic sometimes fails to explain why we choose to follow or not follow.

I’ve taken several online surveys which propose to tell me who I should vote for. And in every case I am most closely aligned with Ron Paul. After that come a smattering of Republicans, usually Fred Thompson followed by Romney, Huckabee, and McCain in a virtual tie. All of the serious Democratic candidates fall to the very bottom. And yet, this time, I very well may vote for a Democrat.

I’ve never made a difference in a presidential primary. Let’s face it; I’m pretty much a Libertarian, so I’m always voting for the fringe Republicans. I would vote my principles in hopes that a few votes for someone that I felt represented my views might help shift the party ever so slightly to the right. The problem is that instead the GOP has generally moved away from my views, not towards them. And the same has happened in the general election where I voted for Ron Paul last time around because not only am I a Libertarian, but my wife reminded me that I was against the war when it first started - I said that it struck me as a convenient political ploy which could be useful in 2004 (I wish I was blogging back then so I had proof of my prophetic nature). I voted for Ron Paul last time around, and there’s a strong part of me that wants to vote for him again, but what’s the use?

I have, however, made a difference in two Congressional elections when we defeated Cynthia McKinney. In both cases there were a lot of people who voted in the Democratic primary not because we were Democrats, but because we wanted to vote against Cynthia. And we did. And she lost. And it was a lot of fun. And what was also fun was getting behind a candidate in Hank Johnson who neither represented my political nor religious views. It was good to get behind a generally good man who we could be proud to call our representative, despite the fact that we differed on many issues.

And so, I just may vote for Barack Obama. According to one survey we only agreed on two issues. But policy surveys don’t tell the whole story. At some point we have to look beyond policies and ask whether we could follow a person should he or she become the President. How would we feel if his or her face were the one that people around the world mentally saw when they thought of our country? Would we be able to stomach listening to the annual State of the Union speech when this person gives it? When I look at the so-called viable candidates, Obama fits that bill. McCain and Romney don’t for me, and I believe that Hillary is the incarnation of evil itself. So hopefully voting for Obama will be as much fun as voting for Hank Johnson was.

About a year ago we had our first meeting. Eleven of us (only ten finished the task) met in the Commons for the first time to face the task to which we had been elected - find the replacement for the man who founded our church ten years ago. It was a strange and daunting task. John left on great terms (he didn’t officially step down for another six months) and without another specific calling; the time was just right. And we had no clue how what the search process would look like or how to go about it. We were barely even able to pick a chairman.

Somehow we managed to find the right man. And while the average search time in our denomination is nearly 18 months, Ewan was officially installed this past Sunday. It was an amazing service. Our founding pastor presided, as did our former associate pastor. One of Ewan’s mentors spoke, and his best friend gave a short homily. But Shari (John’s wife) told us what we really needed to hear, and she used the words from Adam and Eve - leave and cleave. It’s time for us to stop looking to John for leadership and to instead look to Ewan.

I had the mixed blessing of getting to spend about 40 out of the last 52 Tuesday nights, plus several weekends, finding and picking Ewan, and it’s a tough challenge for me. John has personally meant so much to so many people that it’s going to be very hard for some of us to look away from him and to the new guy. But what we all need to remember is that ultimately the church isn’t about the pastor; it’s about Christ and his people. And that’s why there’s a lot that I admire about the Methodists; the constant rotation of pastors as chosen by some outside body serves as a constant reminder.

It’s going to take a while for Ewan and family to settle in, but he’s definitely already in charge. When he started preaching a couple of weeks ago, he owned the pulplit; it was as if he had preached from in for years. Here’s hoping that he’s around for many, many more.

Don’t you just hate it when you’ve spent two days coming up with a great blog post only to completely forget what it is once you sit down to write??? Knowing me, I’ll probably remember it as soon as I leave my desk and forget it when I sit down again.

There are some times when you’re glad to find out your doctor was wrong. Like when he tell you that your wife tore her ACL. We’ve now seen two doctors here in Atlanta, and they both agree that her ACL is fine. She does, however, have a compression fracture in her tibia. She needs to rest and stay off her feet (good luck with that), but right now there’s no reason to believe that she’ll need surgery.

Yeah!

We woke up very early Saturday morning and caught the 6:15 flight to Minneapolis. As best as we can tell, we got out just in time, since the snow had not started falling in Atlanta yet. Our Minneapolis to Salt Lake City was a little late, but we were able to avoid the Sundance traffic in Park City and hit the slopes at Deer Valley by 2:30. This was my wife’s first time skiing in six years, and she skied great. She was moving down the slopes with good form and a nice pattern to her turns. And then she fell.

I saw her fall and didn’t think that much of it, but then I saw her face. I wanted to believe that it wasn’t that bad. And for a little while none of us thought it was. She managed to get back on her skis and finish the run. She even got back on the lift and skied a short way over to the gondola. But she couldn’t walk up to the hill to the car. A few bags of snow and a night of icing her knee didn’t help, and we started our day at Alta in the medic’s office. And that’s when we heard it.

A. C. L.

After only four runs her ski trip was over. Worse, rather than preparing for a day on the slopes she had to begin thinking about how we were going to take care of the boys while she spends five days in bed recovering from knee surgery. This is not how our happy trip to Utah was supposed to turn out. If anyone was supposed to get hurt, it was me, and it was to happen while I was doing something stupid. The best wife in the world wasn’t supposed to get hurt on a fluke fall on an easy slope. The rest of the day was spent with her sitting in the pub while I half-heartedly made a few runs on the perfectly groomed slopes and muttered obscenities under my breath.

I might talk about the good parts of our trip later, but for now, really what else matters?

Update - it could have been much worse. As we were flying out a professional skier was making videos on the backside of the mountains we were skiing when he also fell. My friend and I were watching Warren Miller videos during our layover on the trip up. They’re cool as hell, but you never heard about the guys who die making them. I think we’ll stick to the beginner side of the mountain.

Tomorrow we enjoy my Christmas present - the ski shell and the trip to break it in. My wife is the best in the whole world. If you don’t believe it, then show me one who has bought her husband a grocery cart full of Belgian Trappist Ales, built a custom pipe holder, and bought him a ski trip. Oh yeah, then there are the things I can’t put in print…

Have a great long weekend everyone. We won’t be back for a few days. Hopefully I won’t break anything this time, or I may be silent for a bit longer.

There are few “Christians” that I distance myself from more than the likes of Creflo Dollar and Benny Hinn. About the only thing I have in common with them is that we claim the Bible as God’s word. I’m not even sure that my Jesus looks anything like theirs. They are the kinds of people that my denomination’s favorite patriarch might have had burned at the stake.

Fortunately for these charlatans, ours is a country of religious freedom. Even our ridiculous yet sanctimonious drug laws are on occasion put aside in honor of the First Amendment. Other than outright fraud or abuse, the government should avoid meddling in the affairs of faith. I’m a fan of the Fair Tax anyway, but this case puts more fuel on the fire. The government has been using the tax system to go after politically active churches, and the targets are rarely of the party in power. Getting rid of the tax system would mean that the government wouldn’t have a case to keep its eye on the non-profits and would then get out of the religious business. (And those of us who aren’t into prosperity gospel should keep in mind that if the government has power to go after them, then it has the power to go after any of our houses of worship, too.)

On the other hand, perhaps Creflo and the rest should just give up their non-profit status. After all, Jesus did give a pretty short (which these days with blowhard preachers means uninspiring) sermon on paying taxes. Oh wait, maybe that’s just my Jesus…

What is it with private school presidents in our city? First the president of my alma-mater takes a dive out a hotel window, and now the president or Marist just keels over. I noticed yesterday that they were draping the fancy new bricked entrance to Marist with black, but I had no idea as to why; now I do.

Us private school types share a sort of comradery, so my heart goes out to the kids and faculty on Ashford Dunwoody, even if they did manage to beat us in almost every football game (9th grade, JV, and Varsity) each of the four years I studied in College Park.

There’s almost always an element of truth to every joke, even to the ones about us Southerners and inbreeding. I mean, heck, my family tree is more intertwined than it ought to be (thanks mostly to two brothers marrying two sisters). But only in the South could we purposely inbreed something in hopes of creating something so stunningly beautiful.

The photographer said “You get the idea that something is off, but not immediately.” I’ve always loved Tigers, but I never realized that the white ones had so much in common with many of my southern cousins.

From the time she heard about the Meredith Emerson case, she’s been pretty freaked out about it, and rightfully so. Meredith Emerson was a young, athletic, and strong woman who knew how to defend herself. She was in her environment when she was killed, and it’s the same kind of environment that my wife feels very comfortable in - the north Georgia mountains.

While on her way home last night my wife stopped to talk to a neighbor. They talked about the holidays and how crazy they were, and the neighbor then said “And then I heard about Gary.” “Huh?” We had been told that Gary Hilton lived near our old house and that he was apprehended at a nearby gas station, but it really drove things home when she realized that he hung out in our neighborhood. It’s strange when you neighbors are interviewed by the GBI for a murder that took place 100 miles away. What’s more scary is that there’s nothing demographically that makes him more likely to live in the Chamblee area than in East Cobb or Gwinett. In some ways it would be easier if there was something more unusual about him; let’s just be blunt, if he were black or latino or talked to the voices in his head, then we all might feel a little more comfortable. But instead he’s just a neighbor who made what appeared to be idle threats to people who didn’t keep their dogs on a leash. It really sucks to fully understand that we could be walking alongside a murderer (someone who has probably already killed once and will kill again) and not even know it.